March 1st
by casfics
Summary: It is snowing heavily outside, and they have a dispute to settle. Whose idea will triumph and who will win? One-shot — (main story is Half Chance hence picture) *rated T for suggestive themes*


The first morning in March. A chance for a clean slate.

And, as if the world didn't have enough surprises to give, the flurries of white become faster and faster.

Ethan has been awake since long before the birds and squeal of morning commute. Partly, he recognises, this is Alicia's fault. Staying awake till all hours certainly didn't bode well from the get go for an existing insomniac like he — of course, she was the sole determiner of events.

Besides, he couldn't say no to her on a good day: never mind when she came out the shower in _that_ outfit.

After she had easily and blissfully drifted into slumber, his mind had wandered and failed to return. This resulted in him only nodding off himself way past three in the morning. He doesn't mind, not really. This sort of carry on is all he has ever wanted and now he's got it. If the compromise is bleary eyes and feeling a bit fatigue-drunk, then so be it.

She has kindly offered to bring him a coffee: he understands there must be a sense of dutifulness behind the gesture, cynic though this makes him. Still, here she is, in all her morning glory. Bed hair, no makeup, tatty nightie, but his Alicia.

The steaming mug is placed between two calloused hands and she perches next to him, tucking her knees up to her chest.

'Cold?' He asks, sipping from the mug and then holding it away suddenly. 'Did you not make yourself anything?'

'Trying to give caffeine up, else I won't shake the addiction.' She explains, eyes fixating slightly past him and out the window. 'Had a bit of water in the kitchen.'

He appraises her for a second. 'Well, if all your morning coffees contributed to your behaviour and inability to wind down at bedtime, I advocate binning every last granule in this place—'

She pounces on him and he chuckles, steadying the drink on the coaster in anticipation of her next move. 'You so enjoyed last night, Ethan Hardy. Don't even _try_ to say otherwise.'

'Well, it was just a little,' his voice falters as her hands delve under his ribs, pausing and catching them both in his big one before widening his eyes with amusement. 'Wild?'

She rolls her eyes, as if she very much disagrees, yet places a kiss on his cheek all the same. 'Vanilla boy. Bet that was always your favourite ice cream as a kid. Or banoffee or something.'

He avoids her stare until she shrieks with both disbelief and delight and bounces upright. 'Did I get it?'

'Bananas actually contain a lot of potassium,' he begins, almost as if scripted. 'They are extremely high in minerals and—'

She lets him explain for a little while, a small smile playing about her lips. Eventually he realises he's walked into one of her traps again, missed a joke, a flirt, an attempt at banter. Though she has seen everything before, the embarrassment is still too sore to face up to. Now they are still he can take his drink back. Gladly, he does.

'Hey,' she says, wriggling a hand underneath his dressing gown.

He startles at the cool touch but stops his hand before it jerks and drips scalding liquid — his delayed reflexes proving a notable advantage of lack of sleep.

'I was only teasing. Much as you think you are sometimes bad at chatting, I am worse. Too frequently insensitive, something which you're never.' She says, voice tinged with regret. There is a slight pause. 'I say we settle this now.'

'Settle?' He frowns.

'Yeah,' she grins mischievously, hopping off his knee and making her way to the window. 'I reckon there's a good couple of inches of the white stuff settled already, if my measurements are up to scratch. I normally know my inches well though. Enough to make snowballs and have a fight.'

Classic ploy of talking in innuendos. This chatter is double-edged, half fun, half flirtatious. The mood could tip either way and she well knows it — it is clear she actually loves it this way and with persistence, they both know she will certainly win him over.

He gives her a knowing look, a glint subtly in his own eye. 'We have nobody to decide the winner, or will we just do that thing where you win every time and I let you out of care and courtesy?'

'I like to play fair and square.' She shrugs, smiling. 'Whoever ends up the most drenched.'

'Alright,' he nods evenly, standing up. 'Best wrap up warm then. I won't go easy on you.'

'Good.'

-x-

Lumbered with heavy coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and enough layers between them to clothe an entire small island, they waddle out the door and down the road to the local field.

In terms of who is competitive, it is pretty equally split. Of course, he hates defeat, but he would willingly let her win just because. Alicia does not take the same attitude about him, unfortunately, she is in it for herself.

She runs ahead far enough for him to take it all in. 'Two minutes! Just making all my weapons. I need a head start, my hands and legs are tinier.'

'Sure you do!' He calls, but grinds to a halt in the snow all the same.

It is up to his ankles and freezing. Drifts balance precariously on weather-gnarled tree branches. The wind freezes his features, but the back of his neck and head are satisfyingly damp and sticky. Flakes now swarm around his face, obstructing his vision. This is dangerous in itself — the moment he can't see five feet in front of him is the moment he could find himself pelted.

Really, it is like a blizzard. He half hopes his contacts stay nicely stuck, as he would be literally lost without them, not even able to—

'Agh!'

The snow blanket eats his lower legs and he sinks further, knocked off balance terrible by one pitiful ball of snow smaller than an orange to the legs.

Alicia watches gleefully from down the road, cheeks glowing and hooting in delight.

Another one is launched and smacks the front of his 3-in-1, exploding and dripping down to his toes. They are slowly travelling in the direction of his face and he has no choice but to retaliate. Throwing one back, the fight truly commences: duck and cover, build a stash, head down.

The pace of his footsteps quicken and the snow crunches underneath, not letting him forget his purpose. To win. To annihilate the enemy or even just wipe the smug expression off her face, give her a taste of her own medicine.

First throw. Miss. It veers to the side of her left arm and tumbles to the ground. Second throw. Complete miss. Skilfully she leaps out the way, making the icy fingers and effort to compact it nothing but wasted on his part.

All the while, she is thrashing him with her throws.

'This is unfair,' he pants, exhaustion and cold stealing his breath. 'You learnt to throw well.'

'Women of many talents.' She replies smugly. 'I joined the netball team when I did my A levels. Stress levels were just becoming stupid. I didn't think I'd pass Chemistry, let alone get near full marks like my conditional offer stated, so I used it as like a release. Enjoyed it, became friendly with a few of the girls. Did some tournaments, got quite good.'

'As I can see. I never had you down for anything like that.'

'Yeah, me neither. Sometimes you surprise yourself, don't you?' She wonders in to him a bit, and they scoop up more snow together.

He nods thoughtfully. 'And how did Chemistry go? Which bit didn't you like? It was my favourite.'

'I'd always had awful teachers. My class at GCSE didn't want to study, so I was left to self teach out of a textbook while the teacher repetitively screamed "excuse me ladies and gents" in the single worst Geordie accent. It makes mine sound _tame_. Obviously the subject too is so abstract, I didn't have the faintest on polymerisation, single covalent bonds in an alkene, NPK fertilisers. I could've done much better, but my heart wasn't in it from the get go. Conversely, I loved Biology and thinking more psychologically, and that's what convinced me I could still pursue Medicine—'

'And you did,' he smiles ruefully. 'Can't have hindered you too much.'

'I got a B at GCSE and pulled my socks up and landed an A at A level, thank goodness. Still never been that relevant to me, I wouldn't say.' She squeezes the snow together between gloves hands. 'Education is a game. It doesn't necessarily have to be intuitive, you just have to know what the exam wants.'

'Yeah.' He whispers. 'Thank God we're not teachers, eh?'

Alicia continues, eyes blazing, becoming passionate. 'It is so warped, because it's not a test on skill set. There could be academically better equipped doctors out there than me and you, yet _we_ are allowed to come between life and death and meddle with it simply because we scrawled the _right_ symbols on the _right_ page on the _right_ day, and the _right_ examiner — one other measly human being — picked it up and gave it the _right_ mark and then we were on the course. All because one human, who's probably worked in admin for twenty years, 9 till 5, goes home to their wife and children every night and lives in the same repetitive habitual bubble, thought we would fit the tick boxes. It's all so twisted. One big game. That is why I would strongly discourage anyone from getting disheartened at one particular result — it doesn't have to define you. It's just luck of the draw.'

His brow furrows upon noticing the small tears in her eyes, so a gloved hand takes hers to pull her up from crouching. 'That is really true. I mean, everybody struggles, and nothing is easy, but you have to question the morality behind it. Never mind. You're out of it now. You don't have to doubt your capacity as a medic, because plenty of human-orientated activities and events have proved your invaluable, immense aptitude since you sat exams. You're effortlessly capable. For what it's worth, I would trust you to save my life.'

She giggles a little, chewing her lip and glancing down. 'You better hope that doesn't have to come true shortly.'

'Huh?'

She waves a snowball in the air, grinning. 'I am armed and you are not.'

He laughs. 'Come on, Lic– this wouldn't be fair...'

'Since when is anything fair?' She challenges back. 'Life isn't fair. Man up, Ethan. I'm toasty and warm over here, and I thought you weren't going to let me win today! This isn't us playing monopoly all cosy inside — don't even dare make a remark of how you wish it was — you've got to return the throws and fend for yourself now.'

He throws one and it hits her in the forehead, causing her to brush it off violently and shake her head. It must be freezing — it's dripping in her hair and in her eyes and despite himself, he does feel guilty. That is, until she turns around armed again. 'Is that the best you can do?'

The words push him over the edge and he takes a gamble, wrist aligning to shoulder movements and fantastically allowing a jerking movement. They both hold draw a breath. For a fraction of a second, they can see where it is heading. Her face is halted by shock, legs unmoving from the ground. His hands fly to his mouth in horror.

There is an unmistakable soft thud as the handheld snow grenade hits the ground. It is stationary. What is done is done.

Out the corner of his eye, he sees Alicia, who's miming frantically for him to turn around. He doesn't dare, so she does instead.

'I'm so sorry, sir.' She tries brightly, giving a wave to the middle-aged dog walker brushing himself down. 'He's trying to throw, but evidently not doing a cracking job.'

'Evidently.' The man echoes, walking towards them and tugging his black hat harder on his head.

Ethan gulps, rooted to the floor, not helping either himself or her in the matter. The man squares up against him, face to face, eyes threatening, closing in, whilst the dog runs in circles behind.

'He doesn't understand,' Alicia feebly justifies. 'We're awaiting a diagnosis so that we can understand his behaviour a bit better. Gets a bit awkward in social situations and is a bit clumsy.'

'And who are you, the girlfriend?' The man sneers, walking over to her.

Ethan sees red and suddenly finds himself able to move. 'Step away from her. It was one snowball and a complete accident.'

'Or what, mate? I could file for assault—'

'You really couldn't.' He replies calmly, linking his fingers with Alicia's in support. 'It's a snowy day. We have apologised. There is nothing much else to say.'

'Address.' The man grunts.

'Pardon?' Ethan asks faintly, though he heard the first time. She is now leaning on his shoulder a little, chin resting on the ice that still clings to the waterproof.

'I want a full address and name for the pair of you so that I can take this further.'

The pair have time to exchange glances and this is all they need.

-x-

Breath heaving, he collapses against the heavy door. She fumbles desperately in her bag.

'Keys.' He rasps. 'I-I need keys—'

'Don't panic, alright? I'm finding them, but I've lost all feeling to my fingertips.'

'How can I not panic, Alicia? The way he looked at you, and the way he said he would follow us, and—'

She looks over her shoulder, peering down the road. 'We just ran home. I am convinced nobody followed us in this ice. He probably had a good old laugh about it afterwards, alright? Two silly youths, in his opinion, that he's been able to instil some fear into. Probably got a kick out of it. Please do not worry. We were just having fun.'

'I can't get over the look on his face, it was—'

'Priceless,' Alicia says, twisting the keys in the door and pushing him through the frame first. 'It was funny. Come on, you've got to see that with hindsight.'

'Imagine how you'd feel!' He retorts, mortified.

'Amused, most likely. Sorry about saying there was something the matter with you also.'

He laughs. 'I wondered if any of that was partially true. Socially awkward?'

She turns to face him, no longer in a rush now they're in the warm of the corridor. 'No. At least, not to me. If you didn't have your quirks, you wouldn't be you.'

'Mm, a mediocre recovery.'

She ignores his comment and continues on, exasperated. 'You will see past this and laugh! You'll think of it as the time when we had a snowball fight and a stranger got socked in the face because of one of your dodgy throws. It won't feel embarrassing, it'll be nostalgic and a memory of a good day.'

He clears his throat a little. 'Who won anyway?'

'Oh, need you even ask? My performance was exceptional out there.'

'As I earlier said, glad we followed the habit of a life time and crowned you champion for no concrete reason.'

'Rubbish! I won. If I wasn't so bloody freezing, I'd go out there and prove it to you. Except you're a liability with snow so that might not be the best plan.'

'Just a _tiny_ bit rude, darling.'

'Still haven't decided my prize, anyway.' She says, unzipping her coat with a tug. 'I probably need to get thinking.'

'I will make dinner for you and bring it so you can eat on your knee and watch trash shows to your heart's content. That is your idea of heaven.'

She frowns, thinking a moment. 'I'd like _more_ than a meal.'

'There's a surprise,' he rolls his eyes. 'You don't need any sort of reward. You've got me. You were a winner before we even started, let's face it.'

'I can't refute that, I suppose.' Alicia sighs heavily, flirtatiously, wrapping her arms around Ethan's neck. 'We'll have to find a way to keep warm in this dreadful, freezing weather.'

'Yes,' he agrees. 'I'll put the heating up to 22.'

She laughs. 'Only you, mood killer of the century.'

He looks back at her disapprovingly. 'Like you think I'm naïve to your game. I'm intentionally dampening your ideas because it is not socially acceptable to end up in bed _this_ early.'

'Then let's not go to bed then. I like your sofa.'

He groans and leans in to kiss her, for locking lips and giving in is decidedly better than earache from nagging. They leave the snowy world firmly shut outside the door.


End file.
